Speaker 1: I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset.
Speaker 2: When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset.
Speaker 3: And when I find my.
Speaker 1: Ball in a brid egg Frida egg, the dread Frida Egg,
Speaker 1: Frida Egg, Frida Egg, bride egg Lie, I'm about ready
Speaker 1: to run off the golf course.
Speaker 3: And welcome back to another edition of the Frida Egg Podcast.
Speaker 4: Today's episode is with Thad Layton. Fad is the senior
Speaker 4: golf course architect and vice president at Arnold Palmer Design Company,
Speaker 4: so the company that conducts all of the design work
Speaker 4: under the Arnold Palmer umbrella. Sad I've known for a
Speaker 4: number of years, and I think he's been doing some
Speaker 4: pretty interesting stuff, you know, given the reputation of Arnold
Speaker 4: Palmer Design, and that's why I was really excited to
Speaker 4: talk to him. Obviously, a wildly different background than the
Speaker 4: majority of the architects that we have on this podcast,
Speaker 4: you know, one with a lot of different experiences than
Speaker 4: you know, going to work for Pete Dye or going
Speaker 4: to work for Coren Crunshaw, whatever it may be. You know,
Speaker 4: he was building golf courses in far flung locations across
Speaker 4: the world, and he gets into stories from one of those,
Speaker 4: which was quite the story. So I'm really excited to
Speaker 4: talk about a golf design and kind of thads unique
Speaker 4: experiences on this podcast. You know, one quick thing I
Speaker 4: did want to talk about. I wanted to talk about
Speaker 4: the Pebble Beach pro am and just something I found
Speaker 4: ridiculous and I'm hoping eventually changes in America.
Speaker 2: The play.
Speaker 4: I don't know if some of you may not have
Speaker 4: seen it, but on Saturday, it was windy, it was rainy,
Speaker 4: it was it was a rough weather day on the
Speaker 4: Monterey Peninsula, and at NPCC, the wind created a situation
Speaker 4: along with the speed of the greens, that the ball
Speaker 4: was not staying when marked, and you know, it made
Speaker 4: it an unplayable condition and they ended up pulling everybody
Speaker 4: off the golf course, all three golf courses so MPCC,
Speaker 4: Pebble Beach, and Spyglass. So while the problem was at
Speaker 4: NPCC they pulled everybody off the golf course, they did
Speaker 4: they halted play for the rest of the afternoon, and
Speaker 4: this led to a Monday finish of an event that
Speaker 4: should finish on Sunday. Obviously, that's big for the business
Speaker 4: of golf. Why these companies sponsor these events. One of
Speaker 4: the big reasons is for that weekend, valuable weekend airtime
Speaker 4: and Saturday that got basically none of it because of
Speaker 4: this incident. So obviously it was windy, it was it
Speaker 4: was tough weather, but not anything that we haven't seen
Speaker 4: in Scotland and Ireland. And it gets to the underlying
Speaker 4: issue in in American golf is our fascination with fast greens.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: I think one of the things is people think fast
Speaker 4: and smooth, like those are two separate aspects of greens.
Speaker 4: And America's gone way too far with the speed of
Speaker 4: the greens. They have gotten way too fast. You know,
Speaker 4: you see clubs across the country softening greens, softening greens
Speaker 4: that have been one way for one hundred years to
Speaker 4: accommodate the increased green speeds. And this is just silly.
Speaker 4: You want to talk about things that make the cost
Speaker 4: of the game higher and unsustainable. It's doing work to
Speaker 4: soften greens because we want to have faster greens. You know,
Speaker 4: everybody talks about firm and fast. I talk about firm
Speaker 4: and fast, and I think that like what we miss
Speaker 4: is that maybe what we should talk more about is
Speaker 4: firm and smooth and in the aspirational greens in golf
Speaker 4: are the ones that are really firm and really smooth,
Speaker 4: not necessarily fast.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: I think band and Dunes pulls us off really well.
Speaker 4: The greens out there are really accommodating because they are slow.
Speaker 4: You know, they they deal with heavy wind all the
Speaker 4: time and they a lot of those places, those spots
Speaker 4: on those greens would become unputtable if the speed of
Speaker 4: the greens was really high. So what we saw at
Speaker 4: MPCC and really derailed the tournament. It was extremely playable
Speaker 4: in the afternoon at Pebble Beach on Saturday, but it
Speaker 4: was unplayable because of the fascination with fast greens. And
Speaker 4: this is you know, obviously the tour is one of
Speaker 4: the places that is I would say they are one
Speaker 4: of the leading proponents of this. The greens are fast
Speaker 4: week and week out, and they're expected to be fast,
Speaker 4: and in this case there were two fast for the conditions.
Speaker 4: So slow down greens, listen, that's going to save us time.
Speaker 4: It's going to lead to faster rounds. Fast greens slow
Speaker 4: down pace of play, They cost more to maintain, and
Speaker 4: overall they're just unnet necesario it's an ego thing. So
Speaker 4: let's slow the greens down and we won't have incidents
Speaker 4: like at MPCC. We'll be playing golf in more weather
Speaker 4: and it will be a better television product. Hence why
Speaker 4: people love the Open Championship when the weather gets wild,
Speaker 4: because these guys struggle, they have to grind and they
Speaker 4: have to play through it, and there aren't greens for
Speaker 4: the most part outside of what was it when Brooks
Speaker 4: was on the green and it blew. Outside of that,
Speaker 4: you know, for the most part, the Open Championship doesn't
Speaker 4: have these delays because they keep the greens a much
Speaker 4: more reasonable pace. Those are perfect examples of greens that
Speaker 4: are firm but smooth. All right, after that long winded intro,
Speaker 4: now too bad?
Speaker 2: Late?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 4: That I gotta ask, and I should ask this more often,
Speaker 4: but I don't. When and what made you want to
Speaker 4: be a golf architect?
Speaker 1: Like it all started when I was around twelve or
Speaker 1: thirteen and I got hooked on the game. I'm originally
Speaker 1: from Gulfport, Mississippi. Not a whole lot of golf courses
Speaker 1: down there, but I did get to play at IMMUNI
Speaker 1: called Trademark and it was a golf course. It wasn't
Speaker 1: very elaborate. There were two bunkers in the entire course.
Speaker 1: There was a bunker on the ninth green and one
Speaker 1: on the eighteenth. So I was always redesigning this golf course.
Speaker 1: In my mind. I was just completely smitten with the game,
Speaker 1: watching the two events on the weekend and noticed a
Speaker 1: big discrepancy between the course I was playing and the
Speaker 1: ones I was watching the pros play on the weekends.
Speaker 1: So you know, I just had this inclination. My mind
Speaker 1: was running wild of everything we could do with this
Speaker 1: golf course. But I loved the game. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: too long after that that I was turned onto a
Speaker 1: book called The Anatomy of a Golf Course. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're familiar with that, and I just dove headfirst into
Speaker 1: that book, absorbed it like a sponge, and that pretty
Speaker 1: much set the trajectory for me wanting to become a
Speaker 1: golf course architect. And I was forty seven now, just
Speaker 1: turned forty seven January first, and so that's been thirty
Speaker 1: four years now I've been on this path and very
Speaker 1: very fortunate. I know there's a lot of people that
Speaker 1: kind of want to become golf course architects, and I
Speaker 1: think there are a lot of people out out there
Speaker 1: that would have the skill to do that as well.
Speaker 1: But again, I just feel really, really blessed to be
Speaker 1: able to do what I do for a living.
Speaker 4: So you're one of the rare people that, like, as
Speaker 4: a teenager, if I asked you what you wanted to be,
Speaker 4: you would have been like, I want to be a
Speaker 4: golf architect, and you became a golf architect.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've talked with Jay Blasi about that, and I
Speaker 1: think he's probably the only other person that maybe from
Speaker 1: a really early age kind of do what they wanted
Speaker 1: to do. So I feel it's probably a rarity. I
Speaker 1: certainly didn't stumble into it in college or after college.
Speaker 1: It was something that I really wanted to do. And
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't all green lights either. I mean,
Speaker 1: everybody that I would talk to about becoming a golf
Speaker 1: course architect, whether they were in the business or were
Speaker 1: at the fringes, discouraged me from doing that talking, you know,
Speaker 1: told me how competitive it was to not only get
Speaker 1: in the business, but stay in the business. So fortunately
Speaker 1: I didn't listen to them, and I was able to
Speaker 1: continue to kind of follow that dream and and here
Speaker 1: I am today, still doing it.
Speaker 4: That's one of the nice things if you attack it
Speaker 4: from a young age is that when you're young, you
Speaker 4: have a certain level of being naive, you know, and
Speaker 4: and unaware of how difficult things can be. I you know,
Speaker 4: I think about this a lot. Is like if I
Speaker 4: knew everything I knew about golf media now, I would
Speaker 4: I probably wouldn't make it, you know, doing this, This
Speaker 4: wouldn't have worked out because I would have been just
Speaker 4: too aware of all the things that could go wrong.
Speaker 2: In your career.
Speaker 4: What would you say in terms of breaking into this
Speaker 4: industry that's really hard to break into really, you know,
Speaker 4: as you alluded to, a lot of people said, you know,
Speaker 4: don't go into this as a business. What was the
Speaker 4: most challenging part of establishing yourself in the design world.
Speaker 1: The toughest part was just that first entry, right. I
Speaker 1: mean for me, I was able to get into I
Speaker 1: was living in Gulfward at the time. There was an
Speaker 1: Arnold Palmer golf course that was being built about forty
Speaker 1: five minutes from where I lived, and I was able
Speaker 1: to get a job on the construction crew. So I
Speaker 1: think that is you know that was the pathway for me.
Speaker 1: Without that, I don't know if I would be working
Speaker 1: for Palmer, maybe I might be working for someone else.
Speaker 1: But that was my entry into the golf course industry.
Speaker 1: Of you know, we get a lot of them in
Speaker 1: from a lot of people that want to get into
Speaker 1: the business. Still to this day, and you know, I
Speaker 1: try to write everybody back and try to counsel them
Speaker 1: on how to best get into the business. I think
Speaker 1: today the best path is construction, but a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't want to hear that. What they want to
Speaker 1: go straight into an office. But the business has changed
Speaker 1: a lot. But even when I started getting going straight
Speaker 1: into an office was it was unlikely. The odds are
Speaker 1: stacked against you. So when people reach out to us,
Speaker 1: I try to encourage them to get a job or
Speaker 1: a golf course contractor. And that's how you meet architects.
Speaker 1: That's how you learn how to build a golf course
Speaker 1: from the ground up, and that's how eventually you become
Speaker 1: a good architect. I mean, I think the best architects
Speaker 1: in the business have some type of construction background. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying I'm one of those guys. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I'm one of the best in the business. But the
Speaker 1: guys that I admire in this industry, a lot of
Speaker 1: the as you interview periodically, they started out. A lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of them have a construction background. I
Speaker 1: know Bill and Tom have backgrounds with Pete Dye and
Speaker 1: how he considered himself a golf course builder first and foremost.
Speaker 1: So I think that would be the best way to
Speaker 1: get into the business and learn the most and stay
Speaker 1: in the business.
Speaker 4: I feel like a common thread among the people that
Speaker 4: I interview in this industry is most of them did
Speaker 4: things and made sacrifices or went out of their way
Speaker 4: to make themselves indispensable in order, like, you know, not
Speaker 4: unable to not hire that person. You know, they they
Speaker 4: went above and beyond. And I think that's the thing
Speaker 4: with like a with a highly competitive industry, you have
Speaker 4: to do things that other people aren't willing to do
Speaker 4: in order to stand out and and really set yourself up.
Speaker 4: Part you've had to give it. Arnold Palmer designed, you know,
Speaker 4: international scope. You know you've had to been all over
Speaker 4: the world. What are the few what's the craziest place, Like,
Speaker 4: what's the place when you think I can't believe I
Speaker 4: was there?
Speaker 2: For x amount of my life. What what's the place
Speaker 2: that you think of about Kazakhstan. Tell me about building
Speaker 2: a golf course in Kazakhs.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not the Warat's version of Kazakhstan, but that
Speaker 1: was that was my first opportunity. I've worked for Arnold
Speaker 1: Palmer Design for three or four years full time as
Speaker 1: a project coordinator and this project came up and they
Speaker 1: knew I wanted to be an architect. I was on
Speaker 1: track to do that, and the opportunity came up for
Speaker 1: this course in kazaks How you would call it opportunity,
Speaker 1: you know whatever.
Speaker 2: There's step a different levels of opportunity.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wasn't Carmel, but I jumped at the opportunity.
Speaker 1: I figured this would be a great opportunity kind of
Speaker 1: make my bones, and they gave me the lead architect
Speaker 1: job there on. It's called jel Au and it was
Speaker 1: a project for a big mining conglomerate in Kazakhstean that
Speaker 1: was doing this golf course is kind of a favor
Speaker 1: to the president to keep you know, their mining rights
Speaker 1: in the country. So I remember, you know, flying from Jacksonville, Atlanta, Germany,
Speaker 1: and then a six hour labor to, you know, catch
Speaker 1: the flight into almighty Kazakhstan and it's like, man, I'm delirious.
Speaker 1: I've never flown this farm my entire life. I show
Speaker 1: up like ten hours jet lag. I'd get off the
Speaker 1: plane and there's guys with submachine guns, you know, checking
Speaker 1: everybody out, Like, man, what have I got myself into.
Speaker 1: We get on the site and a guy named Ian Gannon,
Speaker 1: an Irishman, was our project coordinator there. They said, man,
Speaker 1: we got big problems right off the bat. We've got
Speaker 1: twenty five dozers out here, but only two of them work.
Speaker 1: They're all in excess of fifty years old. The tracks
Speaker 1: are falling off of them. The laborers don't even have
Speaker 1: proper equipment, you know. They're pick axes, the handles. They're
Speaker 1: whittling them out of trees in the morning and by
Speaker 1: noon the pick axes are broken and they're into their
Speaker 1: bows of vodka. So I was like, man, this is
Speaker 1: going to be that pill climb. So that was That
Speaker 1: was my first, probably most remote project that I had
Speaker 1: as lead architect, and eventually it turned out all right.
Speaker 1: It took about a year to build a golf course.
Speaker 1: Ian was great. I'd made probably six or seven sight
Speaker 1: visits on that golf course. Today we like to make
Speaker 1: a lot more than that, but those are the heydays,
Speaker 1: right We were opening you know, ten to twelve golf
Speaker 1: courses a year, so we had a much different business
Speaker 1: model at the time. But again, that was my first
Speaker 1: golf course. Very proud of the way that turned out.
Speaker 1: With all the headwinds we experienced on that project.
Speaker 4: What kind of concessions did you have to make with
Speaker 4: the shotty equipment, you know, suspect crew and then also
Speaker 4: like just like the lack of hand like did you
Speaker 4: have to change the design at all because of that stuff?
Speaker 1: You know, I we had to back off of our
Speaker 1: design standards and specifications otherwise we'd still be there today
Speaker 1: trying to get this thing grassed. Even when the golf
Speaker 1: course was grass they had a superintendent that went out
Speaker 1: there over fertilized a golf course and basically killed all
Speaker 1: the grass and set it back an entire growing season.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was a new market. It was. It
Speaker 1: was the frontier I guess it still is for golf
Speaker 1: and that was that was one of the cool things
Speaker 1: about working for Arnold Palmers, being able to know people
Speaker 1: talk about growing the game, that turn gets overused I
Speaker 1: think in a lot of ways. But to be able
Speaker 1: to go to a market like that where people even
Speaker 1: on the construction crew. When I got to go back
Speaker 1: and play the golf course for the first time, you know,
Speaker 1: right right when the thing was growing in and I
Speaker 1: was out there with a set of golf clubs hitting shots,
Speaker 1: and the guys that had been working on a golf course,
Speaker 1: you know, this light bulb went on their head and
Speaker 1: they were watching this play. They'd never seen anybody body
Speaker 1: play golf before, and they've been working on this project
Speaker 1: the entire time. The light bulb came on, It's like, man,
Speaker 1: this is what we've been working on. This is this
Speaker 1: is what this is for. They connected the dots that
Speaker 1: that was. That was pretty cool.
Speaker 4: What's been I guess in terms of you know, you
Speaker 4: talk about like introducing the game to countries, I you know,
Speaker 4: we we talk with a lot of architects that have
Speaker 4: limited scope in terms of building golf courses and countries
Speaker 4: that are pretty new to golf. What is there a
Speaker 4: way you approached courses like say it's the first course
Speaker 4: in a country, differently than if it's a golf course
Speaker 4: in America.
Speaker 1: Maybe the most simple answer is no. I think you
Speaker 1: want to deliver a golf course as capable of having
Speaker 1: a tournament there, and I think that a lot of
Speaker 1: those first markets they're looking to have some type of
Speaker 1: event there. So you certainly don't want to try to
Speaker 1: design a golf course around maybe a culture that's never
Speaker 1: played the game before. I mean, we certainly try to
Speaker 1: create the ability to play our golf courses along the ground,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean they necessarily easy for tournament play either.
Speaker 1: So I think maybe the simplest answer is yes and no.
Speaker 1: I mean, we want the golf course to be playable
Speaker 1: for everyone, and I think the way you do that is,
Speaker 1: you know, you're taking those tournament considerations into account, but
Speaker 1: you're also taking the ground game trying to factor that
Speaker 1: in as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to.
Speaker 4: That's got to be an interesting challenge because you're in
Speaker 4: one part designing for the greatest players in the world,
Speaker 4: because they you know, it makes you make a great
Speaker 4: Like most places that are building their first course have
Speaker 4: an idea of probably a DP World Tour event or something,
Speaker 4: or an Asian Tour event come to play there. But
Speaker 4: then at this on the other hand, You've got people
Speaker 4: going out there that have never played the game before
Speaker 4: in their life play this golf course.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, you don't want to turn people off right
Speaker 1: out of the gate. But also you don't want to
Speaker 1: have a you know you mentioned DP World Tour. You know,
Speaker 1: whatever whatever event ends up going there, you don't want
Speaker 1: to go out there and shoot forty under par for
Speaker 1: the week either.
Speaker 4: You talked a little bit about on site time. You
Speaker 4: just brushed on this and the heyday of Arnold Palmer
Speaker 4: designed when you were doing ten courses opening ten courses
Speaker 4: a year. How has Arnold Palmer Designed a design evolved
Speaker 4: really since you've been a part of it. It's been
Speaker 4: where you've been your entire career since your early twenties,
Speaker 4: and how have you seen the firm evolve?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's completely different again, going from twelve course grand
Speaker 1: openings a year and having forty to fifty. Weas to
Speaker 1: have this huge project board. It was almost over Wornant Welming.
Speaker 1: I mean it was about forty feet wide, this whiteboard
Speaker 1: that tracked all of our projects in the three different phases.
Speaker 1: And now I can kind of keep track of everything.
Speaker 1: We're working on a little three by five note card.
Speaker 1: But I think the trade off there, you know, what
Speaker 1: we're sacrificing in volume, we're making up for in quality
Speaker 1: because we're spending so much more time on site. Just
Speaker 1: speaking about my own experience, I've for the past five years,
Speaker 1: I've started to shape my own work. You know, I
Speaker 1: was down in Uruguay. Just a side note about that project.
Speaker 1: It was post pandemic. We couldn't find a shaper down there,
Speaker 1: and I'd been I probably had five or six hundred
Speaker 1: hours on a dozer up to that point, so we
Speaker 1: couldn't get the guys down there that we wanted and
Speaker 1: the project needed to move forward. So I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I never a better time there. Right now,
Speaker 1: we need to keep this thing moving forward. I feel
Speaker 1: comfortable enough where I can get on the dozer and
Speaker 1: also the excavator and do some bunkers as well. So
Speaker 1: that would have been on heard of, you know, back
Speaker 1: in when I started in the early two thousands, for
Speaker 1: an Arnold Palmer architect to get on a piece of
Speaker 1: equipment or have the luxury of time to spend you know,
Speaker 1: eight weeks consecutive weeks on a project doing shaping and
Speaker 1: working side by side of the construction team. So as
Speaker 1: far as an evolution, we're getting our hands dirty. We
Speaker 1: like the design bill model. We believe in it. We're
Speaker 1: not fully there yet, and I think we're probably halfway there.
Speaker 1: One of the things that we're doing a lot different too, is,
Speaker 1: you know, instead of working directly with the shapers that
Speaker 1: the contractor provides or bringing our own people, we've been
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to work with probably a lot of people
Speaker 1: you've you've talked to or have heard of to do
Speaker 1: our bunkers. I mean, work a lot with Brett Hochstein,
Speaker 1: Jeff Bradley, even Rob and Tad work with us down
Speaker 1: in Naples doing some finish shaping down there. Riley Johns
Speaker 1: is another guy we've worked with. And you know, that
Speaker 1: not only makes our projects better, but that makes us
Speaker 1: better as architects. We're not siloed off just looking at
Speaker 1: our own work and the work of you know, maybe
Speaker 1: other brand name designers were, you know, As a golfer,
Speaker 1: I like to get out and play other people's golf courses,
Speaker 1: So I think that's another thing that makes us better
Speaker 1: as architects and as a company. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've seen any of our work for the past ten years.
Speaker 2: But I said, go creek.
Speaker 1: We played, well, there you go Machinele. But yeah, before
Speaker 1: and after that golf course, I mean, I think there's
Speaker 1: some noticeable differences of what we would have done when
Speaker 1: I started at Palmer and what we're doing now a
Speaker 1: lot more. You know, center line bunkers issues that are
Speaker 1: instead of bunkering holes left and right, you know, taking
Speaker 1: one bunker and just putting it right on the center
Speaker 1: line as something we would not have even considered ten
Speaker 1: or fifteen years ago, but we find that that's you know,
Speaker 1: if you provide the appropriate amount of width on either
Speaker 1: side of that bunker, that's a great way to create
Speaker 1: a very interesting golf ball that's asking good questions of
Speaker 1: the people that are playing it.
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Speaker 4: What would you say pushed this evolution and change in ideology?
Speaker 4: What was really the thing that pushed you guys into changing.
Speaker 1: I think it's you know, there's a good quote. If
Speaker 1: you don't like change, you're gonna like irrelevancy even less so.
Speaker 1: As for myself and my design partner, Brandon Johnson, I
Speaker 1: think the guys that are really passionate about this business
Speaker 1: are golfers first and foremost, and the golf courses that
Speaker 1: we like to play, and the ones that we were
Speaker 1: comparing notes on ten or fifteen years ago weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: Palmer golf courses. Like, man, these guys are doing stuff
Speaker 1: that we need to take some notes. We need to
Speaker 1: change our approach. How are they getting these results? Why
Speaker 1: are they creating golf courses that you and I would
Speaker 1: rather go play than some of the stuff our firm
Speaker 1: has done in the past. And I think that was
Speaker 1: probably the turning point. And also, you know, competing for
Speaker 1: jobs and getting beat out by some guys that you know,
Speaker 1: think you know what we can do work just as
Speaker 1: good as they can. But but yeah, I think it's
Speaker 1: time for a change.
Speaker 4: What was the toughest thing about pushing like a this
Speaker 4: is a significant cultural change within your company? What was
Speaker 4: the heart when you look back and to where you've
Speaker 4: gotten today, you said you're about halfway to where you
Speaker 4: want to be. What was the most difficult aspect that that?
Speaker 1: I think the biggest turning point was the work we
Speaker 1: did at bay Hill back in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: And that was mister Palmer's baby. He loved watching the
Speaker 1: tour pro struggle on his golf courses, and to this day,
Speaker 1: I think it ranks as the hardest golf course on tour.
Speaker 4: Yeah, blood bath every year, oh yeah man.
Speaker 1: But and it kind of has always been that way,
Speaker 1: but it was kind of they kind of tricked it
Speaker 1: up to get there. We thought the rough was super thick.
Speaker 1: It was very penal and nature. And he said, you
Speaker 1: know what, I've reduced this golf course to a par
Speaker 1: seventy to try to, you know, really challenge these guys.
Speaker 1: But there was so much blowback from guys that couldn't reach.
Speaker 1: Like the fourth hole was a it was basically a
Speaker 1: five hundred and twenty yard uphill part four. They just
Speaker 1: moved the tee up forty yards and it made it
Speaker 1: a four to eighty uphill. Often played into the wind.
Speaker 1: A lot of guys and really reached that golf hole
Speaker 1: in two as a part four with a driver and
Speaker 1: an iron, and it kind of had this force layup.
Speaker 1: So he wanted to turn it back into a par five.
Speaker 1: We convinced them the best way to do that was
Speaker 1: to really shrink the target up, elevate the green and
Speaker 1: make it difficult to hit in two, but also provide
Speaker 1: a lot of apron cut around the green, so if
Speaker 1: they missed that green, the ball just really ricochet and
Speaker 1: got to roll in and created some difficult shot selection
Speaker 1: recovery options around the green. And he came out. That
Speaker 1: was the very first golfl we did, and you know,
Speaker 1: his eyebrows raised. It's like, man, this is way different.
Speaker 1: You know who did this? And everybody looked at me,
Speaker 1: so I had to explain myself and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about, you know, some things we
Speaker 1: want to do. I know it's different than the old
Speaker 1: golf hole. And we did a three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: degree around that green with him and he looked at
Speaker 1: me and smiles, slung his arm around me. He said,
Speaker 1: I like this. Let's do some more of this. So
Speaker 1: that felt to me that that was permission for Brandon
Speaker 1: and I to make some bigger changes through the entire
Speaker 1: golf course and also not just Bay Hill, but that
Speaker 1: kind of opened us up on everything else in our
Speaker 1: portfolio to go back and really create some thoughtful options
Speaker 1: on our golf courses, take out a lot of the
Speaker 1: bunker and create some shortcut around the greens, and recovery options,
Speaker 1: you know, all those things you hear about today. We've
Speaker 1: been slowly but surely implementing those into our portfolio of
Speaker 1: almost three hundred golf courses for the past ten years.
Speaker 1: Hopefully the industry is taking notice. I don't know. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of hard to tell being on the inside, but
Speaker 1: it's nice to get feedback every now and then from
Speaker 1: people that are like, hey, we played Satakoi prior to
Speaker 1: the renovation. We played at post renovation is so much better,
Speaker 1: you know, thank you for the work you guys did there.
Speaker 1: So those are music to our ears or pushing things
Speaker 1: in the right direction. We just need more opportunities, not
Speaker 1: only on those renovations, but also new golf courses to
Speaker 1: kind of flex these new design build muscles in this
Speaker 1: new philosophy.
Speaker 4: If you will, I imagine working for someone like Arnold Palmer
Speaker 4: or and you could submend Jack Nicholas or Gary Player
Speaker 4: into this conversation. Is when you're young, you're young architect,
Speaker 4: part of you wants to build your ideas, but then
Speaker 4: part of you understands, I need to build things that
Speaker 4: look like what Arnold Palmer wants like. Is there a
Speaker 4: little bit of a difficult Was it difficult developing your
Speaker 4: own personal style while working under one of the legends
Speaker 4: of the game that had built hundreds of courses before
Speaker 4: you got really became established as an architect.
Speaker 1: Very insightful, Andy, And that's exactly what I faced, you know,
Speaker 1: graduating from college. Obviously all wanted to stay employed there,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to do things that mister Palmer and
Speaker 1: ed C, who was his number one guy, my daily
Speaker 1: boss there on pint of Peter Beach, things that they liked.
Speaker 1: I continue to push the envelope where I thought I could.
Speaker 1: But you know, also I am a bit of a
Speaker 1: people pleaser, and I loved, you know, the industry that
Speaker 1: I was in, and I didn't want to rock the
Speaker 1: boat too much. So I think it's a matter of
Speaker 1: probably the first five years, just getting that first project,
Speaker 1: getting the credibility, also keeping your eyes open, paying attention
Speaker 1: to things that are moving the needle and the rest
Speaker 1: of the golf industry, things that you like, having conversations
Speaker 1: with ed C and Arnold and like how can we
Speaker 1: continue to improve? I mean that was one of the
Speaker 1: great things about mister Palmer is he was always trying
Speaker 1: to evolve, He was always getting better. He was always
Speaker 1: young at heart, right, even though he wore the same
Speaker 1: you know, hard collar golf shirts every day of his life,
Speaker 1: he was always trying to find something on the golf course,
Speaker 1: always trying to find a new piece of equipment. So
Speaker 1: I mean, I think he understood the need to evolve
Speaker 1: as a design company, to continue to get better and
Speaker 1: respond to the changing taste in the industry, and also
Speaker 1: set trends where we could. So that felt like to me,
Speaker 1: I've been there twenty five I started in ninety seven
Speaker 1: as an intern, so it probably has been what twenty
Speaker 1: five twenty six years now. It's crazy just to try
Speaker 1: to add this up, but it probably took fifteen or
Speaker 1: sixteen years to where working for mister Palmer to where
Speaker 1: I felt comfortable starting to maybe question some of the
Speaker 1: old ways and put some of my own spin on
Speaker 1: what I think I thought Arnold Palmer Golf Course needed
Speaker 1: to be to stay relevant and relevant as a company.
Speaker 1: And also I'd like to credit Brandon Johnson for that,
Speaker 1: I mean, because he's supported me. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I would have been nearly as bold if it weren't
Speaker 1: for his support, and vice versa, because we were both
Speaker 1: saying the sant thing's like, man, this what they did there,
Speaker 1: that just sucked. Man, we can do so much better
Speaker 1: than Let's let's figure a out a way to do
Speaker 1: this better. And so that's that's what we've been doing.
Speaker 4: I think about your situation, right I. You know, it's
Speaker 4: a lot different than a lot of architects have gone
Speaker 4: on their own. That being said, your career path, you know,
Speaker 4: in terms of experience and seeing a lot of different
Speaker 4: a wide array of different types of projects in different places.
Speaker 4: You know, the benefits of going with a big firm
Speaker 4: like Arnold Palmer into the sense of for you personally
Speaker 4: as a golf architect, you were exposed to so much
Speaker 4: right off the bat versus you know, a lot of
Speaker 4: young architects that go kind of on their own are
Speaker 4: just wondering what's happened, what what their next job? And
Speaker 4: they're on their one job and don't know what their
Speaker 4: next job is, you know, whether it be I might
Speaker 4: pick up some work here for for Gil, I might
Speaker 4: pick up some work over here for somebody else, like
Speaker 4: and they're piecing together.
Speaker 2: But you're you're lie. I mean, you were you.
Speaker 4: Were part of construction crews like pumping out golf courses,
Speaker 4: and but then you also saw a seismic shift in
Speaker 4: the way golf courses were built, and you were on
Speaker 4: the side that it shifted away.
Speaker 1: From, right, I don't I don't know if there's a
Speaker 1: question in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there wasn't really a question.
Speaker 4: I apologize, Yeah, I just I think that's a uh,
Speaker 4: it's a it's a very you know, I think cause
Speaker 4: I think about a lot of times, you know, what
Speaker 4: is the best path for a golf architect? And and
Speaker 4: I imagine sometimes you you wonder, how would my life
Speaker 4: be if I wasn't with this big firm that my
Speaker 4: name's out on the door. Is there ever has there
Speaker 4: ever been an inkling of of you know, in terms
Speaker 4: of of Layton Design versus you know, you're you're designing
Speaker 4: golf courses for Arnold Palmer Design.
Speaker 1: Well, I think, you know, if when when I first
Speaker 1: got in this business, even before I started with Palmer,
Speaker 1: I've never thought of staying with the firm that I
Speaker 1: started with forever. It just kind of ended up that way,
Speaker 1: you know it. We'll see if there's still a demand
Speaker 1: for the Palmer name. I mean, it's so far we've
Speaker 1: you know, we've got so many golf courses of service.
Speaker 1: It's still there. I want to do new golf courses.
Speaker 1: It seems like that's that's a bit of an uphill
Speaker 1: battle without mister Palmer around to do the grand opening
Speaker 1: to rub elbows with the clients. The bitter iron is
Speaker 1: I think that we're doing the best work we've ever
Speaker 1: done right now. I know we are. I mean I
Speaker 1: can say that unequiped but it's harder than ever to
Speaker 1: get work without mister Palmer around. So well, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say never, but things are still
Speaker 1: good with the Palmer brand. I think it's still strong.
Speaker 1: I think the work that we've done for the past
Speaker 1: decade is starting to turn some heads in a good way.
Speaker 1: So hopefully we'll get those new golf courses. But that's
Speaker 1: where my heart is at. Our renovations are great. I
Speaker 1: love seeing the difference that we can make on some
Speaker 1: of our old courses in our portfolio. Also some stuff
Speaker 1: that what like satical. I mean that wasn't a Palmer course,
Speaker 1: it was a Billy Bell junior course there in Ventura.
Speaker 1: But you know, those are kind of one offs. I'd
Speaker 1: like to do more of those. But again, my heart
Speaker 1: is in creating something new, bringing the things I've learned
Speaker 1: over the past three decades to bear on a new
Speaker 1: piece of property, getting that once in a lifetime site
Speaker 1: that's you know, hopefully somewhere on the ocean. The big
Speaker 1: sandscape with you know, one hundred acres to put a
Speaker 1: golf course wherever you want. I'd love to be able
Speaker 1: to sing my teeth in that and help shape that.
Speaker 1: So as far as if that's under Palmer or Layton design,
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, I've got no real preference
Speaker 1: and I've got no ego in that regard. I just
Speaker 1: want to do great golf for myself and my friends. Hopefully,
Speaker 1: if we're scratching our own itch, there'll be people like
Speaker 1: you and a whole h you know, group of golfers
Speaker 1: out there that it resonates with, and hopefully it'll be
Speaker 1: a little bit different then, you know, I just don't
Speaker 1: want to try to emulate the minimalist movement and all
Speaker 1: those little variations of it. I want to do something different.
Speaker 1: So we'll see, We'll see where we end up. But
Speaker 1: it all depends on the side and the client. Right.
Speaker 1: If we can get there, then this sky's the limit.
Speaker 4: You talked earlier about you know, Uruguay and building really
Speaker 4: like stepping in and building the majority of features down
Speaker 4: there because of shapeing needs and everything. With your life
Speaker 4: as a golf architect, what is the toughest thing from
Speaker 4: going to being going from being predominantly an editor where
Speaker 4: you look at what somebody else built and say, hey,
Speaker 4: I like this, I would change this, I might move
Speaker 4: this here, I want this to flare up to being
Speaker 4: an editor and the creator of the work.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think when you're dealing with being an editor,
Speaker 1: you're probably holding back a little bit because you want to.
Speaker 1: I think a good architect and lists the creativity of
Speaker 1: their shaping talent. They get them on board, they engage,
Speaker 1: they want the shaper to have some artistic license. So
Speaker 1: you're probably not getting one hundred percent of what you
Speaker 1: want wanted or envisioned. And when you're editing and a
Speaker 1: lot of cases you're getting something better. But when you
Speaker 1: get on that those are as an arc detecked, you're
Speaker 1: the one that's on the hook, right. It's like, man,
Speaker 1: if you don't like it, there's there's no one to
Speaker 1: point the finger at. So it's it's much different. But
Speaker 1: it has provided this connectivity before that I didn't have
Speaker 1: when I was just on the drafting board and doing
Speaker 1: site visits. To be on the dose or and understand
Speaker 1: how to manage dirt and balance each site and you know,
Speaker 1: get the most out of it and create quirk and
Speaker 1: you know, pinnable areas. Everything that you're asking the shaper
Speaker 1: to do and your plans are by verbal instruction. Now
Speaker 1: you're the one that has to do that, and kind
Speaker 1: of these happy accidents that come up when you're shaping,
Speaker 1: especially when you're in I'm not an a shaper. I'm
Speaker 1: a B plus at best. So you know, even even
Speaker 1: I was, even though I was down there shaping and
Speaker 1: roughing everything in, there was a team that went behind
Speaker 1: me and cleaned things up. So back to those happy accidents.
Speaker 1: When you're not that refined as a shaper, you end
Speaker 1: up was like, man, I thot, it was kind of
Speaker 1: not what I pictured there, But that's pretty cool. Let's
Speaker 1: figure out how to incorporate that that contour into the
Speaker 1: green complex. Maybe let's pull that green to that contour,
Speaker 1: or you know, maybe let's kind of bunker into that
Speaker 1: that quirky feature right there. So there's there's all these
Speaker 1: opportunities that arise in the field when you're there every day,
Speaker 1: when you're shaping your own own work, that are impossible
Speaker 1: to have on the drafting board or impossible to have
Speaker 1: when you're just kind of jetting in and jetting out
Speaker 1: bi monthly, you.
Speaker 4: Know at Benda, Uruguay, and uh, I feel like that's
Speaker 4: like a great Yeah. Yeah, this was before I started
Speaker 4: the fried Egg, but I felt I was there and
Speaker 4: I was. I kept looking around. I was like, there's
Speaker 4: there's great ground for golf here. And something I'm curious
Speaker 4: with your international travels, what's the best area or country
Speaker 4: for golf that nobody knows about. Maybe an underdeveloped country
Speaker 4: in terms of golf that could be a great golf
Speaker 4: country based off of the natural features.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say you're Aguay.
Speaker 2: You can say you're Aguay. I is that okay? Frankly?
Speaker 2: Like it's kind of easy to get to from the
Speaker 2: US too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's. Uh it's only like two hours ahead of
Speaker 1: East Coast time zone, depending on what season it is.
Speaker 1: Right now it's summer down there. But yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a small country. It's right across the water from Buenos Airas.
Speaker 1: You know that you get some mackenzie fingerprints down there
Speaker 1: at Punta Karatas and also the Jockey Club in Argentina.
Speaker 1: But it's for what a reason? I think that, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just underdeveloped as a golf country. We were fortunate
Speaker 1: to pair up with with a developer out of Brazil
Speaker 1: that purchased thirty five hundred acres just outside of Punta
Speaker 1: de Leste, Uruguay. Yeah, and the area, yeah, it really is.
Speaker 1: You've got got the Atlantic Ocean right there and just
Speaker 1: really great topography, some cool rock out cropping. So we
Speaker 1: basically had the pick of the litter when it came
Speaker 1: to putting our golf course on the ground there, and
Speaker 1: it's one of the it's probably the most excuse me,
Speaker 1: the least shaped golf course that we've ever done. We
Speaker 1: basically just built greens, bunkers and a few teas and
Speaker 1: everything else is just on great because they had this
Speaker 1: canopy of native bermuda grass. It's a little rough in texture,
Speaker 1: but once you mow it down, you know, we didn't
Speaker 1: need to grasp airways there, so we didn't. So it's
Speaker 1: it's very minimum in its approach, very sustainable architecture wise.
Speaker 1: I mean, the only thing they really need to water
Speaker 1: or the greens because they decided to plant bent grass there.
Speaker 1: But it's a great, uh, great model for sustainable golf,
Speaker 1: I think. But it's the countries go ahead.
Speaker 4: That's why I've always thought about Uruguay is like you've
Speaker 4: got the ground, You've got like the.
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 4: I always think back to that because we spent a
Speaker 4: decent amount of time there and it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: the the big thing is the geographic aspect of it.
Speaker 4: Is like it's summer there when it's winter here. So
Speaker 4: you get the long days, you get the you know,
Speaker 4: the the weather when it's cold in America, and it's
Speaker 4: not that hard, like you're not You're not going to
Speaker 4: get crazy jet lagged, like I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I've always thought about it. There's great wine. You know,
Speaker 4: usually wine and golf go together pretty well. So Uruguay
Speaker 4: is uh is a place. Now for a quick word
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Speaker 2: Now back to Thad Layton.
Speaker 4: With renovating, you guys obviously do a ton of renovation work.
Speaker 4: And I think this is obviously gonna be a huge
Speaker 4: trend with golf architecture in the next twenty years, is
Speaker 4: that there's gonna be a lot of golf courses that
Speaker 4: come do with irrigation needs and we're kind of reaching
Speaker 4: that point where the boom period is all those courses
Speaker 4: are in need of refreshes. What's the toughest thing about
Speaker 4: renovating and existing golf course the membership.
Speaker 1: Now it's a drilled down on that a little bit.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody thinks their golf course is flawless, So
Speaker 1: that initial conversation to kind of pull the roll back
Speaker 1: and say, you know what, there's some opportunities here to
Speaker 1: do some things better. The best tool that we have
Speaker 1: to do that is before and after visualization, and that
Speaker 1: typically works best with showing this is what you've got
Speaker 1: with your bunkers. This is what you could have. That's
Speaker 1: the greatest kind of selling tool that we have is
Speaker 1: kind of before and after and the bunkers styling and
Speaker 1: showing those things off, and also green contours, you can
Speaker 1: also show those off a little bit better with it
Speaker 1: before and after rendering. But yeah, that that is probably
Speaker 1: the toughest thing about renovation. Also is the routing. You know,
Speaker 1: oftentimes you're stuck with a suboptimal routing that's surrounded by
Speaker 1: housing and there's no flexibility, right, so you've got to
Speaker 1: stay on this corridor. So you're you've already got your
Speaker 1: greatest tool as far as a routing as an architect.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's if you get the routing right, then
Speaker 1: everything else just flows from that. But you can't. You
Speaker 1: can only make a golf course so good that's got
Speaker 1: a suboptimal routing. So that's that's probably one of the
Speaker 1: aside from the membership that's kind of locked into keeping
Speaker 1: things status quo. The routing is also a substantial hurdle
Speaker 1: to overcome when you're trying to improve the golf experience
Speaker 1: on a renovation. But you're right, Andy, I mean, I
Speaker 1: would say ninety percent of the money that's spent on
Speaker 1: building golf courses is going to be renovations over the
Speaker 1: next ten to twenty years because you've got these great
Speaker 1: locations that are in these dense urban areas where people
Speaker 1: can walk right out of their back door and go
Speaker 1: play a quick nine. I mean, that's not going away. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd love to play Cypress Point every day, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure everyone else would as well, but that's it's just
Speaker 1: not a reality. So how can you make these accessible
Speaker 1: urban golf courses that have already been set aside in
Speaker 1: perpetuity for a land use in a green space. How
Speaker 1: can you optimize that golf experience? And we think we're
Speaker 1: doing pretty good at that. We've got a lot of
Speaker 1: reps at it. But yeah, I mean I think that
Speaker 1: is you're exactly spot on. That's going to be the
Speaker 1: majority of the market in the United States for the
Speaker 1: foreseeable future.
Speaker 4: What's been the most effect You described an exact question
Speaker 4: that I have in terms of when you're stuck with
Speaker 4: a suboptimal routing, and I think everybody that's listening has
Speaker 4: played a golf course like this where you're constricted on
Speaker 4: corridor space, too. You've got maybe homes or ponds on
Speaker 4: the right and left. How do you begin to improve
Speaker 4: that type of like, what have been the best strategies
Speaker 4: for you to improve that type of situation?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you're not going to improve a long
Speaker 1: green to tea distance because you've got roads and houses
Speaker 1: that are that are locked in there. So the best
Speaker 1: that you can hope for is kind of within that
Speaker 1: golf corridor is to really orient people's vision inward instead
Speaker 1: of outward. And that can come through some landscaping or
Speaker 1: some taking those sometimes is taking those that containment mounting
Speaker 1: that's on the outboard, that's trying to protect these homes
Speaker 1: and bringing that inward into play. That was probably one
Speaker 1: of my biggest gripes about how we built golf courses
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, is just how we manage dirt. We'd
Speaker 1: move a million to two million yards on every job site,
Speaker 1: but it would all be scattered into this containment chocolate
Speaker 1: drop everything kind of every green had this amphitheater setting
Speaker 1: around it, and the best place to be time in
Speaker 1: and time out again was the middle of the fairway,
Speaker 1: middle of the green. So it's like, how do you
Speaker 1: take that dirt and you know, if the scope of
Speaker 1: work is big enough and move it around to start
Speaker 1: to create these believable features and more interesting golf. But
Speaker 1: that's really hard to do with, you know, when you're
Speaker 1: locked in with houses on three sides. So probably the
Speaker 1: most the easiest thing to do is just rebunker it.
Speaker 1: And instead of having bunker left and right at every
Speaker 1: fairway in every green, it's like, hey, let's nudge some
Speaker 1: things closer to this. Let's have one bunker closer to
Speaker 1: that line of charm, give them some room to bail
Speaker 1: out to the left, and just not be so afraid
Speaker 1: of where golfers are going to hit the ball because
Speaker 1: you'll never control one hundred percent of the golf shots.
Speaker 1: I mean, you could put all the containment mounting in
Speaker 1: the world, but people are still going to ait houses.
Speaker 1: That's just just the way it is. But you know,
Speaker 1: if you can get away from kind of this delusion
Speaker 1: that you're going to contain all these golf shots, it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's just make this golf course better instead of risk mitigation,
Speaker 1: then then you stand a chance at creating something special.
Speaker 1: Maybe not top one hundred, but certainly move the needle
Speaker 1: in the right direction for a golf course that may
Speaker 1: have been stuck and lingering in its own respective market
Speaker 1: trying to gain members.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what I think about those that type of golf course,
Speaker 4: I always feel like the holes almost fail to set hard,
Speaker 4: Like if you just created harder angles, it would vastly
Speaker 4: improve the course in the sense that everything like you
Speaker 4: lose to everything pushes you to the middle and it
Speaker 4: doesn't then kind of shift, you know. And I think
Speaker 4: that's something I saw at Shingle Creek from your guys'
Speaker 4: work and especially looking at before and afters, is that
Speaker 4: the greens all a sudden created angles and lines of
Speaker 4: play in positions where you know it wasn't the most
Speaker 4: desirable place, but at least it gave you something to
Speaker 4: think about.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I mean Shingle Creek is kind of a
Speaker 1: one off RUSS and that it was a core golf course.
Speaker 1: I mean, you had the hotel, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: you didn't have houses left and right, so we were
Speaker 1: able to create enough width to where the angles really mattered.
Speaker 1: But that's that's easier said than done. On development golf,
Speaker 1: right where you've got a three three hundred foot corridor,
Speaker 1: there's only so much width you can gain and only
Speaker 1: so close to the center line, you can nudge those
Speaker 1: issues before it starts to become an issue for the homeowners.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a fine line. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: you can introduce strategy and angles to a degree in
Speaker 1: a traditional development and all the new stuff that we're doing.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're you've played Lakewood National, but
Speaker 1: it's a thirty six hole course down in the Bradenton,
Speaker 1: Tampa area, But I think it's worth a look. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's that was a project that Brandon did
Speaker 1: as a thirty six hole job and they.
Speaker 2: Had a car ferry tournament there.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. Yeah, and uh yeah, just right out
Speaker 1: of the gate, I think the golfers basically as grand
Speaker 1: opening was the corn Ferry Tour event. It was. It
Speaker 1: didn't take long before it was you know, went from
Speaker 1: being grown in and built to hosting that event. But
Speaker 1: from what I understand, it's a pretty successful it's a well
Speaker 1: received golf course for the pros, and it's a bit
Speaker 1: unusual in a development sense. And I credit Brandon for really,
Speaker 1: you know, towing the line when it came to standing
Speaker 1: up to the developer and saying you know what this
Speaker 1: is the land plant you have, that's fine, that's something
Speaker 1: we would have done twenty years ago. But there's something
Speaker 1: that's so much better. Let us, as landscape architects and
Speaker 1: golf course architects take another look at this land plan.
Speaker 1: We can still get the same light yield for you,
Speaker 1: but we can also make the golf course better. And
Speaker 1: when the golf course better, that's a rising tide that
Speaker 1: lifts all boats. Right, So if this golf course is ranked,
Speaker 1: if it's one of the better golf courses in a
Speaker 1: very competitive market in that Tampa market, then you're going
Speaker 1: to be able to justify high greens fees hire home sales.
Speaker 1: So to Lenar's credit, they listened to that argument. They
Speaker 1: let us reroute the golf course. And it was all
Speaker 1: just in theory, as all just play. There's nothing built
Speaker 1: as a blank slate. But they had a certain perform,
Speaker 1: a certain amount of lot real estate frontage they wanted
Speaker 1: to gain, and we were able to have the best
Speaker 1: of both worlds. But it took pushing back and not
Speaker 1: just accepting the job face value and designing within these corridors,
Speaker 1: but with a routing that was done by not a
Speaker 1: golf course architect. Right, it was just done by a
Speaker 1: land planner or and or the developer to achieve you know,
Speaker 1: a number that they pulled out of their hat that
Speaker 1: looked looked good on paper. So in order, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: there'd be a lot of renovations, but there also been
Speaker 1: a lot of new developments. So to the golf course
Speaker 1: architects and developers out there that are looking to new properties,
Speaker 1: I would encourage them to to do it different. Right,
Speaker 1: Let's let's uh, let's get away from these ideal uh
Speaker 1: lot counts and you know and these long green to
Speaker 1: tea Let's make a walkable development golf course. I mean,
Speaker 1: what a great turn of events that would be. I's like,
Speaker 1: this is the yeah, this is the way we used
Speaker 1: to do it. But now I can you know, get
Speaker 1: off of work at four point thirty and go walk
Speaker 1: nine holes on a golf course that I live on.
Speaker 1: And it's a modern golf course. It's not something that
Speaker 1: was built, you know, one hundred years ago. So I
Speaker 1: think there's still a path. I think you can have
Speaker 1: your cake and eat it too when it comes with
Speaker 1: development golf, and I think Lakewood National is a great
Speaker 1: model for what development golf could be, So I'd encourage
Speaker 1: you to go see it if you're in the area.
Speaker 4: You talked about the containment mounting, and I've always thought
Speaker 4: if they just took that earthwork and moved it into
Speaker 4: the line of play, it would be you know, like
Speaker 4: I look at those containment mounds and it's like, well,
Speaker 4: you know, you think about some of the coolest holes
Speaker 4: in golf. They play over contours about the same size,
Speaker 4: and I always just wonder if the containment mounds were
Speaker 4: the center of the fair away, how cool that the
Speaker 4: golf holes could be.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean you look at the old course. I
Speaker 1: mean there's no containment mounting there. All the contours are
Speaker 1: right down the center line, and they're they're hiding bunkers.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's breaking every rule of rule of golf
Speaker 1: urse architecture that there is out there. And I think
Speaker 1: the more you can break those rules, the better chance
Speaker 1: you have of creating something that's worthwhile and it's going
Speaker 1: to endure. But yeah, I agree, man, it's we had
Speaker 1: it wrong for so long. And maybe you could blame
Speaker 1: that on a litigious society. It's like, well this architect
Speaker 1: didn't you know, if you're an expert witness. This architect
Speaker 1: didn't use go through his due diligence process and exercise
Speaker 1: his good judgment and how he moved this dirt. He
Speaker 1: should have done a lot of containment mounting. So that's
Speaker 1: just maybe one example of how golf in the United
Speaker 1: States is, you know, dies on the altar of of
Speaker 1: trying to serve too many masters.
Speaker 4: We got to ask, what what are a few of
Speaker 4: your favorite Arnold Palmer stories?
Speaker 1: A few of my favorite Arnold Palmer stories.
Speaker 2: Maybe one, maybe two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got to go to Scotland with him to
Speaker 1: look at a property in the Highlands. Regrettably that that
Speaker 1: golf course didn't happen, but that was one of the
Speaker 1: Castle Stewart, right, Yeah, yeah, that's been a salt in
Speaker 1: the wound, but that's all right. So yeah, we we
Speaker 1: got to go over with mister Palmer and two of
Speaker 1: this just stunning side. It was one of these opportunities like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is worth waiting twenty years or something, right,
Speaker 1: We're going to do this. We're working with Mark Parson
Speaker 1: and and walk the center lines with mister Palmer, and
Speaker 1: he was really excited about it, and just just to
Speaker 1: spend three days with him on site in Scotland was
Speaker 1: as the time. I'll never forget. It's all the stories
Speaker 1: he told, the Scotch, the stories we heard over a
Speaker 1: bile of Scotch, and then then flying back with and Brandon.
Speaker 1: I got up really early that day. It was you
Speaker 1: know in the summer, the sun comes up at like
Speaker 1: four am. So Brandon went out and I went out
Speaker 1: and played eighteen holes in Castle stewart By. It was
Speaker 1: like seven am, had breakfast, got on the plane with
Speaker 1: mister Palmer, flew back to Latrobe and there was still
Speaker 1: four hours of daylight and we played another eighteen at
Speaker 1: Latrobe Country Club. So that was one of those that
Speaker 1: was a pretty cool day.
Speaker 2: It's a great day.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, play golf like ten hours apart, it's
Speaker 4: pretty pretty incredible. What what golf courses inspire you the most?
Speaker 1: I always say Pacific Dunes, it was. It was a
Speaker 1: golf course that I think the first cut shot I
Speaker 1: saw on I think it was the cover of Links magazine.
Speaker 1: And what year did that golf course open? Is that
Speaker 1: two thousand and three?
Speaker 4: Yeah, about two thousand and one or two, maybe something
Speaker 4: right around there.
Speaker 1: But it was one of those shots that it was like, Man,
Speaker 1: wherever that is. I got to get to that place,
Speaker 1: and once I did, it didn't let me down. Of
Speaker 1: all the abandoned properties, it's still a golf course that
Speaker 1: I that's the one I want to play the most.
Speaker 1: And just the routing, the journey it takes you on,
Speaker 1: similar to Cypress Point, all the terrains that you experience,
Speaker 1: the care they took to preserve all of these native
Speaker 1: areas in the foreground, mid ground, and background, the shots
Speaker 1: that it asked you to hit. Yeah, it's a great site,
Speaker 1: but it's a great piece of architecture. But as a golfer,
Speaker 1: it's something that I would never get tired of playing.
Speaker 1: I got to play National Golf Links this October for
Speaker 1: the first time, and it was always a bucket list
Speaker 1: golf course for me and Man. I had so much
Speaker 1: fun playing that golf course. And we played Shnnacock that morning,
Speaker 1: and I played Shinnacock before and wasn't really impressed with
Speaker 1: it because I think I've lost like a dozen balls
Speaker 1: in the rough. This was prior to the renovation that
Speaker 1: they did, but it was it was a much different
Speaker 1: golf experience and it just goes to show you the
Speaker 1: difference you can make with just tweaking some fairway lines
Speaker 1: and expanding some greens. Taking things back a little bit.
Speaker 1: But playing back to your question, golf courses that like,
Speaker 1: I like and they've influenced me, Shnnacock and National. Playing
Speaker 1: those two things back to back, I'm still trying to
Speaker 1: process that, but so far, what I've got is, you know,
Speaker 1: they're both great strategic golf courses, but National Golf Links,
Speaker 1: it's almost like all the varnishes stripped off. You see
Speaker 1: every kind of that form follows function, every form there
Speaker 1: is trying to do something with a golf ball, and
Speaker 1: once you play that thing a couple of times, you
Speaker 1: kind of know where those features are, but you can
Speaker 1: also see them and appreciate it. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: all that veneer is stripped away, but the same thing
Speaker 1: across the street at Shinnacock. All the strategy is there,
Speaker 1: but it's just so refined and it's so polished. But
Speaker 1: and and they're and they're on the same piece of
Speaker 1: property arguably, I mean they share a border. But how
Speaker 1: two different golf courses, You know, how two courses can
Speaker 1: look so different. One can be such a punishing test
Speaker 1: in Shinnikock and then one can be so much fun.
Speaker 1: It's just it's still something. I mean, it's probably worth
Speaker 1: writing a book about maybe someone already has, but those
Speaker 1: the architecture on those respective sites being so close to
Speaker 1: one another, are cap or captivating to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The the thing about those two places that I am
Speaker 4: so you know, similar to what you're saying, is like
Speaker 4: the styles are so different, and you know, like it's
Speaker 4: kind of the the perfect thing to point to when
Speaker 4: you you talk about how golf architecture is in art
Speaker 4: is like very similar sites, different architects, and completely different results, right,
Speaker 4: And I think like one of the things that I've
Speaker 4: heard from numerous people is that, like, you know, a
Speaker 4: great example about like the different architecture styles. Like you're
Speaker 4: talking about how how punishing, how tough Shinnakock is and
Speaker 4: how how fun and scorable National is, if you you know,
Speaker 4: from what I gather, when women play, women prefer Shinnikock.
Speaker 4: They think Shinnacock's more fun because there's lets like the
Speaker 4: openings into every green is wide open, right, so you
Speaker 4: can run shots in much easier at Shinnacock, whereas National
Speaker 4: has a ton of force carries into greens, and you
Speaker 4: just think about like that difference, right there is like
Speaker 4: completely different philosophical completely different styles, right, you know where
Speaker 4: Flynn was so natural and the Rainer McDonald architecture is
Speaker 4: very manufactured for the era, right. You know, It's just
Speaker 4: it's just a fascinating those two courses, studying them. If
Speaker 4: we could go back to the Pacific, Dudes, I'm just curious,
Speaker 4: what about the picture stood out to you? You said
Speaker 4: you saw a picture and yeah.
Speaker 1: It was the Yeah, the Eleventh Green. I believe that
Speaker 1: the short part three that blew out bunker on the
Speaker 1: left and all of the gorse and the Marrem grasses
Speaker 1: and that green and then you've got the the Pacific
Speaker 1: Ocean on the left. It just captivated, man. I just
Speaker 1: as a golfer, I wanted to play that hole. I
Speaker 1: wanted to get there. And I had a friend get
Speaker 1: named Deedrich Holmes. He worked for the First Tee and
Speaker 1: he would arrange a trip, an annual guys trip out there,
Speaker 1: and I was I got to go with him probably
Speaker 1: five or six times. And man, everybody would compare notes
Speaker 1: at the end, is like, hey, what's your favorite golf course?
Speaker 1: And it was pretty even you know some people would say, well,
Speaker 1: actually a few people said trails. A lot of people
Speaker 1: said Bandon Dunes, and like the hair on my neck
Speaker 1: would stand ups, like, man, how do you like Bandon
Speaker 1: Dunes more than Pacific Dns. I don't get that, but
Speaker 1: you know that's your opinion. But yeah, Pacific. I mean,
Speaker 1: I just and even talking with now that I'll live
Speaker 1: here in Denver, I've gotten together with gym or being
Speaker 1: a few times from dinner, and we've gone to see
Speaker 1: some golf courses in the area, and I continue to
Speaker 1: pick his brain about that and just their process during construction,
Speaker 1: how they were able to achieve those results, and just
Speaker 1: I could study that golf course play it, and I
Speaker 1: don't know, you probably won't hear a lot of other
Speaker 1: architects talk about a modern golf course being their favorite
Speaker 1: like that, But I'm just being transparent like that. That's
Speaker 1: the one that out of all modern golf courses that
Speaker 1: resonates with me the most.
Speaker 4: I think that golf course. And I don't want this
Speaker 4: to come across the wrong way, but I think resort golf.
Speaker 4: The more and more I think about it and look
Speaker 4: at it, I think resort golf in a way can
Speaker 4: be watered down golf architecture, Like if you put architects
Speaker 4: in the same position to build a private course in
Speaker 4: a resort course, same land, the golf course would have
Speaker 4: a little bit more zip pop like some a little
Speaker 4: bit more like if it's a private club that a resort.
Speaker 4: And one of the things I think about Pacific Dunes
Speaker 4: is that golf course would be the exact same way
Speaker 4: no matter who it was designed for. And I think
Speaker 4: that's the thing to me that stands out is that.
Speaker 4: And I think about it because it's the one course
Speaker 4: abandon that you truly feel a level of consequence when
Speaker 4: you're standing over shots where it's if I don't hit
Speaker 4: this here, if I don't if I don't really get
Speaker 4: this to the right spot, the next one is going
Speaker 4: to be really, really hard and harder than this one.
Speaker 4: And I think that's a lot of times get what
Speaker 4: gets watered down at resort design because of the idea
Speaker 4: of playability in getting people around and it's vacation golf,
Speaker 4: and I think that of you know, like that golf
Speaker 4: course does not. It's it's the same feel that you
Speaker 4: get when you play Shinnakok where you're like I have
Speaker 4: to hit this shot, and I don't want to hit it,
Speaker 4: but I know I have to to otherwise the next
Speaker 4: one's going to be even harder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, i'd agree with that dog didn't pull any punches
Speaker 1: with specific dunes. And I wonder why that is. Was
Speaker 1: that site just so special and they preserve so much
Speaker 1: you create, you leave things alone that maybe you would
Speaker 1: have watered down just to keep the integrity of that site,
Speaker 1: and that just the natural beauty leaving those things alone
Speaker 1: and not overshaping things that maybe you end up with
Speaker 1: kind of an anti resort golf course. I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting, Like I think all the courses there
Speaker 4: are great. It's just that's the only one that to
Speaker 4: me really triggers the the do or die elements, Like
Speaker 4: whether people want to admit it or not, I think
Speaker 4: all great golf courses have, like the truly truly great
Speaker 4: golf courses force you into hitting shots you don't want
Speaker 4: to hit. I mean, like perfect example is the sixteenth
Speaker 4: at Cyper's Point right, nobody stands on that tee and
Speaker 4: it's like, you know, I really want to hit it
Speaker 4: at this island green, but but and you could hit
Speaker 4: it way left, but nobody's going to do that, and
Speaker 4: it's like, you know, like it's forcing you to do
Speaker 4: something you don't want.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the thrill of golf and seeing if
Speaker 2: you can pull it off, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's the difference between tournament golf and casual golf.
Speaker 1: I mean I remember talking about mister Palmer stories and
Speaker 1: really trying to get him to buy in that we
Speaker 1: needed more conto in our greens and talking about Augusta
Speaker 1: as a model and that that being a fun way
Speaker 1: to play golf. And he looked at at me and
Speaker 1: Brandon's like, are you guys fing crazy? Is like, that's
Speaker 1: Augusta's not fun. You don't want to stand over a
Speaker 1: putt to you know, for a million dollars with twenty
Speaker 1: five feet a break in it. That's not my definition
Speaker 1: of fun anyway. So he certainly brought this tournament mindset
Speaker 1: to bear that you know, was different than what the
Speaker 1: way Brandon and I thought. So it was always interesting
Speaker 1: reconciling those two things.
Speaker 4: That's a fascinating tidbit in terms of like the what
Speaker 4: you guys viewed as fun tournament golf views as are
Speaker 4: you kidding me? And it might like it kind of
Speaker 4: gives you a lens into why you know so many
Speaker 4: tournament courses aren't really fun courses.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think the tournament courses. I mean I
Speaker 1: think there's a lot there's probably a general consensus that
Speaker 1: most courses on tour are pretty benign, especially you know,
Speaker 1: after watching last week, you know, Tory Pines. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'll say it, it's just it's a squandered opportunity, right,
Speaker 1: a great piece of property. But it seems like that's
Speaker 1: what a lot of the pros want. It's just like
Speaker 1: the great shots get rewarded, and you know, anything less
Speaker 1: than perfection is punished. There's not a whole lot of
Speaker 1: quirkiness on that golf course. And when you introduce introduce
Speaker 1: quirk into tournament golf, it seems like that turns a
Speaker 1: lot of pros off. And I get that. I mean,
Speaker 1: if that's your livelihood and you're telling me that my
Speaker 1: year is going to come down to whether I was
Speaker 1: lucky or unlucky, then you know, maybe take that that
Speaker 1: eraser and kind of water things down a little bit.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe that explains some of the general general shape
Speaker 1: and style of a lot of the courses on tour,
Speaker 1: But It's interesting that Riviera is one of the perennial
Speaker 1: favorites on tour every year. Cappado is another one. Those
Speaker 1: are kind of quirky, I don't Maybe maybe those are
Speaker 1: the guys at the top that are playing those golf
Speaker 1: courses and winning and they can overcome that quirk.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I always wonder if Augusta wasn't Augusta, what the feedback
Speaker 4: would be if you like, just like basically copied the
Speaker 4: greens and put them on a new golf course. What
Speaker 4: what would people say? Because I think that it would
Speaker 4: it would be a very negative feedback loop.
Speaker 1: I would agree. I think architects that have tried to
Speaker 1: do that. I think we've tried to at least nudge
Speaker 1: some of our shaping on greens in Augustus direction. You
Speaker 1: gotta be careful, man. I mean it's people say they
Speaker 1: want those greens, but I don't think they want those
Speaker 1: greens every day at their home golf course, and they
Speaker 1: certainly don't want to play tournament rounds on them. So
Speaker 1: I think there is a disconnect with what people say
Speaker 1: they like and what people want to play every day
Speaker 1: at their home golf course.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a fact.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's that's a whole rabbit hole we could
Speaker 4: go down, but that I want to thank you for
Speaker 4: your time.
Speaker 2: This is great.
Speaker 4: Catch it up and I think you know I'm going
Speaker 4: to make a make an effort this summer to check
Speaker 4: out one of your one of your redesigns. I'm really
Speaker 4: excited to see the work that you guys have been
Speaker 4: up to in the last couple of years. I know
Speaker 4: one that is kind of in my radars is getting
Speaker 4: up to Seattle Golf Club. So I'm excited to see
Speaker 4: what you guys have been up to. And it was
Speaker 4: really great hearing you talk about the transformation you guys
Speaker 4: have been part of.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the opportunity, Andy, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Thank you for listening to another edition of the Fridagg Podcast.
Speaker 4: Today's episode was edited by Matt Rusin's Thank you Matt.
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